Toward the beginning of Thursday’s Democratic presidential primary debate, the seven candidates went after the current state of the economy, something the President Trump has repeatedly lauded during his presidency.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said that despite the growing economy, the middle class was suffering.
“The middle class is getting killed; the middle class is getting crushed,” former Vice President Joe Biden argued. “The working class has no way up, as a consequence of that,” he added.
Biden also cited a statistic, saying that 40 percent of the farmers in the Midwest couldn’t pay their bills last year.
Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Ind., had similar views regarding the American middle class.
“Where I live, folks aren’t measuring the economy by how the Dow Jones is doing, they’re measuring the economy by how they’re doing,” Buttigieg said.
“There is not one county in the United States of America where someone working full-time, at the minimum wage, can afford a two-bedroom apartment,” he added.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) chimed in with her thoughts about the demographic as well.
“America’s middle class is being hollowed out,” Warren said. “Working families and poor people are being left behind.”
Businessman Andrew Yang was critical of the economy in a different way, noting how despite the record levels of GDP and corporate profit, financial insecurity and student loan debt are also at all-time highs.